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• Tuesday, April 29, 2008 12:14 PM

  @Glenn

  Don't let me break down your resistance, but ...

  Over at Williams' blog there is an entry, some months back, acknowledging the death of Gen. William A. Downing ('The Wad', as he was sometimes known to us).

  http://dailynightly.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/19/278621.aspx

  There is much here to further illustrate Williams' sense of himself, such as it is, as he attempts to conflate his character with Downing's by way of the 'experiences' they shared. It also illustrates why nobody at the outlets did their job w/r/t the 'military analysts'.

  The sycophancy with which military officers (esp officers, because they are the educated alter-egos, the alleged leaders of brave men and strategists who win the crucial battles, and not NCOs or enlisted) are treated by the journos is in proportion to how vacuous and insubstantive the journos themselves are. It's plain when you see them meet in person: even in very mediocre officers, military bearing, command voice, the confidence that comes from command, are unmisteakeable. Whether it means anything ... it usually does not ... about their actual competence, their expertise in the areas they are supposed to comment on, is irrelevant.

  In TV especially, a medium which selects and encourages a level of ADD as reporters, producers and everyone is always half-listening, reactive, thinking ahead to the next question, thinking about how it looks, how to make the source keep talking, how not to make them look bad and screw up your piece, the relative calm and centeredness of the officer, who has had to make decisions the journo cannot even fathom, it's bound to be unsettling.

  The journos may have anticipated this in advance, when they read the bios, about what the officers may have done or where they'd been. The gulf between how the journos regard and market themselves, and their actual achievements, is a secret they can keep to themselves ... in imposter syndrome that might well inspire sympathy, in other circumstances ... except when they are confronted with the evidence, in the form of someone who is not the blow-dried empty suit they are. In the face of this, they project their fantasy image of themselves onto the military 'hero'. By sucking up, by making the general his buddy, he reassures himself that they are not so different, that they are of a kind, men among men, warriors who will make the hard calls, who will fight the good fights.

  I see this dynamic play itself out not only with military officers, but with politicians who possess a certain demeanor. McCain is an obvious example. But he's not the only one who has cowed reporters by playing a kind of alpha-dog dominance game that works much like this one does. Its the mirror image of the right-wing war cheerleaders, the 'chairborne rangers' who imagine that it is they who are actually doing the fighting. They bask in reflected glory.

  If only they understood that by simply doing the jobs we expect them to do, they would gain and deserve an even greater share of all that glory.

  —quickstrategy Read quickstrategy's other letters
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